SAN FRANCISCO — The California High-Speed Rail Authority is striving to get some kind of starter service — from Silicon Valley to the San Joaquin Valley — operational by 2029, and maybe even a service that connects with Amtrak’s San Joaquins as early as 2026. The hope is that once a useful service is operational and heavily used, it will be easier to realize the completion of the entire project from Los Angeles to the Bay Area. This would follow the development pattern of BART or of the Los Angeles subway and LRT system, both of which were derided as failures during initial phases of their constructions. But once the first segments opened, and ridership started to grow, things changed. Now, of course, politicos fight to get extensions of these services to their cities.